4 ms·

This is plain-old piracy and I'm a little surprised to see it getting up-voted on HN. There are plenty of open-access journals, but most scientists choose to p

This is plain-old piracy and I'm a little surprised to see it getting up-voted on HN. There are plenty of open-access journals, but most scientists choose to publish in closed journals instead for a variety of reasons. I think the results of research funded by taxpayers should be free and, indeed, that is now required by the NIH and there's a huge resource available here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ However some of the research published in traditional journals is funded from elsewhere and, as such, I can't think of any reason why we "deserve" free access to it.

forkandwait 16y ago
For the most part, scientists publish in the highest prestige journal possible, because that counts the most toward tenure/ pay raises/ grant application chances; the most prestigous journals are -- for historical reasons -- still closed since they are profit centers for big for-profit publishing houses like Wiley. On the other hand, all the scientists I know wish they could give their papers away for free because it builds their reputation to have people use and cite them, even undergrads at state colleges that can't afford the bigger database subscriptions. Except for textbooks, scholars almost never make royalties, so the profit incentive isn't what you might think. A scholar makes more money by getting raises from the university, speaking and consulting fees, and publishing undergrad textbooks (sometimes). All of these are increased if their is a wider dissemination of their work. Finally, .... in the US, almost all research is funded by taxpayers, directly or indirectly, it's just NIH funded stuff that must be free. Finally, finally .... if it weren't for the fact that the prestigious journals are a ticket to tenure and promotion, there would be no reason to publish anywhere except for Arxiv: so called "peer review", to be honest, is a broken system...
- roadnottaken 16y ago
  "so called "peer review", to be honest, is a broken system..." To misquote Churchill: Peer review is the worst system for scientific publishing... except for all the others.
  - zeteo 16y ago
    It's not misquote, it's paraphrase.
    - roadnottaken 16y ago
      No, to paraphrase is to summarize or re-word [1]. I changed the meaning (from democracy to peer-review [2]). I'm not sure misquote was the best word-choice, but I definitely wasn't paraphrasing. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paraphrase http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paraphrase [2] "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”" -- Winston Churchill
      - duncanj 16y ago
        You can say what you want to say, since it's original, and say, "with apologies to Winston Churchill."
      - zeteo 16y ago
        If you google "to paraphrase Winston Churchill", you hit the figure of speech that you've used. It's a pretty common turn of (para)phrase. PS: Don't rely too much on dictionary.com, it's not the best. E.g. the New Oxford American Dictionary correctly gives the second meaning of "paraphrase: a rewording of something written or spoken by someone else".
        eli 16y ago
        It's a common phrase because it's meant to be funny. The word "paraphrase" is being used ironically
    - sp332 16y ago
      There's a fairly new term for this: snowclone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone
  - forkandwait 16y ago
A1kmm 16y ago
> This is plain-old piracy That isn't clear - the relationship between a journal and an author is generally that the author retains copyright ownership (i.e. there is no assignment), but grants a copyright license to the journal, and in the case of non-open access journals, the license is generally largely exclusive. Linking to a PDF put up by the author (i.e. the copyright holder) is not copyright infringement, because the copyright owner has clearly authorised it. However, the author may, in some cases, be breaching their contract with the journal, and if the site operators deliberately incite people to breach contracts, it could be tortious interference. However, in many cases, even where the journal has an exclusive license, the terms often allow for preprints to be distributed, sometimes immediately, and sometimes after a specific amount of time.

forkandwait 16y ago

For the most part, scientists publish in the highest prestige journal possible, because that counts the most toward tenure/ pay raises/ grant application chances; the most prestigous journals are -- for historical reasons -- still closed since they are profit centers for big for-profit publishing houses like Wiley. On the other hand, all the scientists I know wish they could give their papers away for free because it builds their reputation to have people use and cite them, even undergrads at state colleges that can't afford the bigger database subscriptions. Except for textbooks, scholars almost never make royalties, so the profit incentive isn't what you might think. A scholar makes more money by getting raises from the university, speaking and consulting fees, and publishing undergrad textbooks (sometimes). All of these are increased if their is a wider dissemination of their work. Finally, .... in the US, almost all research is funded by taxpayers, directly or indirectly, it's just NIH funded stuff that must be free. Finally, finally .... if it weren't for the fact that the prestigious journals are a ticket to tenure and promotion, there would be no reason to publish anywhere except for Arxiv: so called "peer review", to be honest, is a broken system...

roadnottaken 16y ago
"so called "peer review", to be honest, is a broken system..." To misquote Churchill: Peer review is the worst system for scientific publishing... except for all the others.
- zeteo 16y ago
  It's not misquote, it's paraphrase.
  - roadnottaken 16y ago
    No, to paraphrase is to summarize or re-word [1]. I changed the meaning (from democracy to peer-review [2]). I'm not sure misquote was the best word-choice, but I definitely wasn't paraphrasing. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paraphrase http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paraphrase [2] "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”" -- Winston Churchill
    - duncanj 16y ago
      You can say what you want to say, since it's original, and say, "with apologies to Winston Churchill."
    - zeteo 16y ago
      If you google "to paraphrase Winston Churchill", you hit the figure of speech that you've used. It's a pretty common turn of (para)phrase. PS: Don't rely too much on dictionary.com, it's not the best. E.g. the New Oxford American Dictionary correctly gives the second meaning of "paraphrase: a rewording of something written or spoken by someone else".
      - eli 16y ago
        It's a common phrase because it's meant to be funny. The word "paraphrase" is being used ironically
  - sp332 16y ago
    There's a fairly new term for this: snowclone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone
- forkandwait 16y ago

A1kmm 16y ago

> This is plain-old piracy That isn't clear - the relationship between a journal and an author is generally that the author retains copyright ownership (i.e. there is no assignment), but grants a copyright license to the journal, and in the case of non-open access journals, the license is generally largely exclusive. Linking to a PDF put up by the author (i.e. the copyright holder) is not copyright infringement, because the copyright owner has clearly authorised it. However, the author may, in some cases, be breaching their contract with the journal, and if the site operators deliberately incite people to breach contracts, it could be tortious interference. However, in many cases, even where the journal has an exclusive license, the terms often allow for preprints to be distributed, sometimes immediately, and sometimes after a specific amount of time.